It has recently been shown that prolonged inactivity, and particularly prolonged inactivity associated with sitting, can have adverse health effects. Indeed, prolonged sitting has been shown to cause abnormalities in a person's blood circulation, which (over time) may cause deleterious health effects. The medical community has recently advised that office workers should move from a sitting position—and engage in some level of physical activity—at least once per hour. In recent years, a number of interactive sitting chairs have been developed and commercialized. However, the vast majority of such chairs, many of which are designed to provide some type of massage to a person, do not offer a suitable and effective means for encouraging and facilitating physical activity by persons sitting in such chairs. Accordingly, a need exists for improved interactive sitting chairs, which are designed to encourage and enable users of such chairs to periodically engage in meaningful physical activity—and thereby avoid the deleterious health effects that can otherwise be caused by prolonged periods of dormant sitting in such chairs.
As the following will demonstrate, many of such needs are addressed by the exercise chairs and related systems of the present invention.